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MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Justin GantJake KitchellGreg LansingST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Loyola – 81 THE MODERATOR: Sycamores are with us. Jake Kitchell, Justin Gant will surround head coach Greg Lansing. He'll start off with a statement on the game, and we'll go to questions for the two student‑athletes. COACH LANSING: First of all, congratulate Porter and his crew. I knew they'd be ready to go. Apologize for us not even giving them a test to help them get ready for tomorrow. That was‑‑ there's no easy way around it. That was a butt kicking from start to finish. I apologize to our fans. I thought our band and the cheerleaders and dance team were much more into it than we were for the entire game. We got a great group of fans that come down here. We've played better and fared better in this tournament in the past four years, and they were excited about it. So I apologize to them and our administration for the product that we put out there tonight. That's not Indiana State basketball. Our character was revealed a little bit, and that starts with me, and it filters down through everybody else. But I do want to say with these two guys sitting up here, they've done a lot for us, and they're outstanding young men and are going to do tons of great things in their lives. Really sorry that we had to have their last game be something like that because they deserve better than that. Hopefully in time, they can put that behind us. As a coach, that's all I'm going to be thinking about until we start practice next year. Q. For Justin and Jake both, Loyola said that they wanted to be the aggressors in this game. I guess how disappointing is it that you weren't able to respond with aggressiveness of your own. THE MODERATOR: Jake first. JAKE KITCHELL: It's very disappointing. They came out, and they punched us right in the face and played harder than we did. Just straight up, they wanted it more, and it was clear in the way that we played. It's frustrating for the whole team, but it's simple. They just wanted it more and played harder than we did. JUSTIN GANT: Like Jake said, they came out and threw the first punch, and we never really responded. We were careless with the ball and didn't do what we wanted to do on the offensive end. Then on the defensive end, we didn't fight hard enough and didn't take anything away from them like we wanted to. They just ran their offense the way they wanted to and got the shots they wanted. Q. Justin, it was 9‑7. For a while, you guys hung in there defensively. But do you think the accumulation of some of the missed shots eventually had an effect on the defensive end? JUSTIN GANT: Yeah, I think so. It's frustrating when you're not hitting the shots you usually do. Offensively, we weren't really playing as a team. We did a lot of things one‑on‑one and didn't look to pass and get other people open. So we did a lot of one‑on‑one game, which makes things tougher and makes us take tougher shots. So I think that affected us on the defensive end and took away our aggressiveness, took away our mindset from the defensive end, and we were more worried about the offense and missing shots than we were about going down and locking up on the defensive end. Q. For both of you guys, as Greg said, he wanted to reflect a bit on your careers and just talk about your time at Indiana State. It obviously didn't end the way you wanted it to, but kind of reflect on the entirety of it and what you take away from it. THE MODERATOR: Jake. JAKE KITCHELL: I'm going to take a lot away from being a part of Indiana State basketball. I've been very blessed and very humbled to be a part of such a great tradition and such a great basketball culture. I'll never forget any of these guys that I've played with or been through the good and the bad with. It's been a great five years for me at ISU, and I'll cherish it for the rest of my life. JUSTIN GANT: We've made a lot of memories over these years, things that we won't forget. I think I've taken‑‑ I'm going to take a lot away from it. I think it's helped me become a better person and a better player, and just thankful for the coaches and for the players. They've done a lot for me. I'm going to miss it. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we'll dismiss you. Thank you very much. Congratulations on your careers. Q. Greg, I imagine you were as surprised as anybody was when‑‑ not with Loyola's intensity, but with your own team's response to it. What was going through your mind as you started to see that unfold? COACH LANSING: Disbelief. I really don't have any excuses. I thought we were ready, thought our practices were good. We probably could have went longer to prepare for them. We do have a lot of new guys, but we have a lot of veterans to understand tournament basketball. We were The Finals last year with these guys and how hard people play. I mean, it's survival mode. Just disbelief. Surprised and disappointed, really disappointed in myself because I take it very personally, as you know. I got to do a much better job of getting them ready, and I'll learn from this, and I'll be better as well. It's an extremely disappointing way to end the year. Q. Greg, same question I had for the players. 0 for 19 or 0 for 18‑‑ COACH LANSING: 0 for 17 before we made one. Q. And a lot of the other shots weren't falling either. Do you think the offensive woes had an effect on the defense and it all kind of snowballed? COACH LANSING: No question. We talked about it before. As a staff, you talk about it all the time. The one constant has to be your defense. With young guys sometimes, they don't see the ball go through the basket, they forget what they're doing at the other end and don't compete like they need to. So it definitely affected us tonight. And it snowballed. I mean, it really did. I give Loyola tons of credit. They were the aggressor throughout. They had‑‑ they played with a tremendous purpose. They were more determined than we were. Again, I think we've got to look in the mirror. Some of our character was exposed, and it doesn't sit real well with me. Q. Since you beat them twice this year, do you think for some of the guys there was an element of it's going to be easy‑‑ maybe not easy. Maybe that's not the right way to put it, but it's not going to be as hard as it was. COACH LANSING: Easier. You come out of the hotel lobby, and your fans are in there packed and fired up. I think our guys are‑‑ maybe they had a little bit of that.  Maybe they just assumed they were going to beat them since they beat them twice, and get another chance at Northern Iowa. You go back to what Kitch said, when somebody wants it more than you, it just tears my guts out because that's not Indiana State basketball and the way we should be. There's a lot of young guys there, some immaturity there, that that certainly could come into play. Q. After halftime and you guys get the feeling of scoring on the first possession, at that point, was there hope? Obviously, you had talked at halftime about what they needed to do. Was there a brief glimmer there? COACH LANSING: Yeah, and then they went on a 12‑0 run. Looked down, and I couldn't believe what the score was when I looked up a couple times. I really thought we'd play better. We're a much better basketball team than we put out there today. That's on me. Q. Moving forward, Greg, with some of these guys that are coming back and some of the character that you saw tested today, what do you take out of that and kind of use in the off‑season to get them to not have this happen again? COACH LANSING: It's going to be a tough spring. It will be difficult. If you want to be a part of something as special as Indiana State basketball and the way we take care of these guys, you're going to do the right thing, act right, compete at a high level. It's an honor to wear our uniform and represent our tremendous fans, and we did not do that today. So we're going to take this and learn from it, and my guess would be some guys are going to get challenged. It's not going to be an easy spring. We're going to learn from it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Greg. Best of luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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